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“The entire situation stinks like a bad made-for-TV,” remarks an opportunistic commentator midway through the chilling follow-up Influencers. At that point, his tone is dismissive in a calculated way of a guest with an bizarre tale he previously claimed he believed. But his description of what’s happening on screen isn't inaccurate. On its face, a pair of streaming movies chronicling a young woman who worms her way into the worlds of online influencers before killing them feels like a modern-day version of a lurid yet network-approved Movie of the Week. The surprising aspect regarding Influencers remains just how superior it is compared to much of its competition, regardless of where you watch it. It is precisely the thriller capable of giving other movies a serious bout of FOMO.

Recapping the Original and Establishing the Scene

The 2022 film Influencer follows the mysterious CW (Cassandra Naud) as she quietly chooses solo-traveling influencer targets, lures them to their deaths, and conceals those murders (for a time) by taking control of their socials. The movie concludes (spoiler ahead) with CW stranded on a deserted island off the coast of Thailand, following her most recent mark, Madison (Emily Tennant), reverses their roles against her.

This lends 2025's Influencers some early mystery, as returning writer-director the director picks up with CW happily living with her girlfriend Diane (Lisa Delamar) in Paris. On a journey marking the couple’s one-year anniversary, UK-based influencer Charlotte (Georgina Campbell) catches CW’s eye and ire.

CW comments to her partner that someone should try leaving a device-obsessed online personality somewhere with no technology and see if they can make it. Is this an origin-story prequel? Was CW radicalized by seeing the special treatment given to one clout-chaser?

Evolving Viewpoints and Global Pursuits

The story’s perspective changes multiple times, ultimately revealing those introductory moments' place in the timeline. The story revisits Madison, now exonerated for committing CW's offenses, yet still encounters suspicion over her version of what happened, which includes the murder of Madison’s boyfriend. The film also follows Jacob (Jonathan Whitesell), based in Bali attempting to boost his profile as part of a conservative-influencer duo with Ariana (Veronica Long), although his preferred medium involves masculine-focused livestreams, as opposed to the Instagram photos that normally attract CW’s attention.

Naud remains terrifically magnetic in the part, a role that appears particularly custom-fit for her talents. (She even created CW's striking outfits.) Although the follow-up's focus tips heavily toward CW — the original felt more equally divided between the two women — it still works as a tale of dueling investigators, with both women both use fabricated profiles, social media surveillance, and an apparently unlimited travel budget to pursue or evade each other. Then again, maybe the vast resources aren't needed. Online personalities possess a talent for getting to explore luxurious locales at little cost, an ability which CW mirrors with her more overt scamming.

Resourceful Production and Cinematic Travelogue

The filmmakers behind Influencers appear equally ingenious about finding beautiful places to visit, though they were presumably more legitimate in their methods. The vast majority of the film appears to be filmed in real places, providing it an authentic gravity that remains even as many scenes consist of a handful of actors of characters staring at digital devices.

It’s the same principle which allowed the Bond franchise look so persistently lavish over the years: Yes, big action and visual effects can show off a big budget, but simply offering a travelogue of sorts for the audience also feels deeply filmic. It’s also especially fitting for a story so rooted in the coexisting superficial glamour and desperate hustle of creating envy-inducing digital content.

Every character visiting Bali, like those staying in Thailand in the first film, seem to have entry to impossibly chic modern bungalows; films exist concerning beach rescuers which don't feature this much aerial pool video. These individuals must believably occupy these lush, far-flung locations to emphasize the uneasy irony of how frequently each person — even the woman exacting revenge on the influencers’ self-centered phoniness — nevertheless devotes much time in the glow of their devices.

Nuanced Portrayals and Digital-Age Suspense

Simultaneously, Harder hasn’t authored a rant targeting the vacuousness of online fame. While it can be gratifying to see CW manipulate various online personalities, and a Hitchcockian sense of identification allows us to wish she doesn’t get caught, the filmmaker is somewhat understanding of the key influencer figures. In the first movie, he tapped into the loneliness Madison experienced while on supposedly envy-worthy vacations. In this film, Harder seems to trust that just observing Jacob at work will make it clear that he’s peddling false masculinity to other gullible men; he resists turning into a caricature the character further. He even grants Jacob a degree of respect through depicting his genuine loyalty to his girlfriend; he is two-faced, yet Ariana is a collaborator in his double standards, not someone exploited of it.

The other side of Harder’s even-keeled presentation is that it may occasionally seem as if he is acknowledging elements of contemporary digital culture without investigating them. This is especially true regarding how he introduces artificial intelligence into the plot, an intriguing development which misses the psychological edge it should have. The pluralized title of Influencers might give fans of the first movie expectations of a larger-scale ante-upping, and the film ultimately delivers that, with a suitably wild final act. However, initially, it resembles more a sleek Hitchcock thriller than a frenzied, technology-obsessed De Palma-style shocker. Influencers’ heavy use of actual places might also be what keeps it from seeming like pure nightmare fuel. The world may be overrun with content-churning influencers, online fraud, and self-serving tourism, but reality itself remains present, for now.